Our Holy Father stated in a recent in-flight presser:
We need to have sex education for children. The ideal is to start from home, with the parents. It is not always possible because there are so many different situations in families, and because they do not know how to do it.
Let’s make this ideal a reality and learn Fr Sattler’s book through and through. It is certainly time well spent. The rest of this post is copied from a previous post.
We recently wrapped up a book discussion group with parents and teachers from SJBS/CAR. This is a really good book that I think worth sharing. For those who aren’t currently raising children, it could make a good wedding or baptism present. I created a an outline (CliffNotes) as well as some notes regarding other resources shared in this google folder.
PARENTS, CHILDREN
AND
THE FACTS OF LIFE
A TEXT ON SEX EDUCATION FOR CHRISTIAN PARENTS
AND FOR THOSE CONCERNED WITH HELPING PARENTS
By Fr. Henry V Sattler, C.SS.R., Ph.D.
Excerpts from the Publisher’s Preface:
Fr. Henry V. Sattler’s Parents, Children and the Facts of Life will serve as an excellent and much-needed counterpoise to the Godless, public and grossly immodest “sex education” employed in the public schools—and, alas, in all too many Catholic schools. For it will give parents at once both the ammunition to show school authorities that the primary and essential obligation to instruct their own children in sexual matters belongs to THE PARENT and not the school, plus it will more than equip parents for their task.
One might think that the passage of forty years from the printing of the first edition of the book would have rendered it outmoded or grossly dated. But exactly the opposite is the case.
Excerpts from the Forward:
Parents may not entirely consign to others the task of providing for the moral and religious formation of their sons and daughters.
One of the most important phases in this parental duty of promoting the spiritual welfare of the young is sex education.
Most parents would readily admit, the proper fulfillment of this task is by no means easy.
The embarrassment that is likely to accompany the frank discussion of so delicate and personal a matter, the difficulty of choosing the right terms, and the fear that the child will ask questions which they may not be able to answer deter many parents from undertaking their duty, despite the unquestionable fact that in this age of blatant indecency and sexual license the proper sex education of adolescents is vitally necessary if their chastity is to be preserved.
Father Sattler has avoided two extremes which could easily spoil the instruction: on the one hand, vague and unsatisfying statements which are likely to arouse undue curiosity, and on the other hand, vivid and stimulating descriptions that may be a proximate occasion of sin to youthful hearers.
The benefit is greatly increased when a group of parents discuss these points frankly and honestly
It should likewise be noted that this book will also help teachers to discover and fulfill their function in chastity education as delegates and helpers in what is essentially a parental duty.
The book can be purchased on Amazon, Tan Books, AbeBooks.com, ($10 paperback / $6 kindle) and elsewhere.
Companion booklets – Listen, Son and Mother’s Little Helper (raw texts here and here)
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Nice article Ben but you have to realize it is easier in Europe to begin these lessons by just taking the kids to see the water fountains in town!! lol
Can you clarify: Are you being facetious when you say Pope Francis wants us to read this book? It looks like a good book, and it’s not the sort of book I expect Pope F. to recommend. When I read your quote here about what he (allegedly) said in his “presser”, it looks like an invitation to have other people teach children sex ed, justified since it’s “not always possible” for all parents. Then you bring on this book, which does seem to be about parents teaching children.
Basically I withhold judgment of Pope F.; I recognize he says a lot of things questionable, and also things that make me feel a little sick, and also so many of those who appear to be his best-buddy friends make me sick (and don’t your friends are says a lot about you?), and the people he seems to disregard/dismiss are the people I most particularly admire. But at the same time I recognize that our Lord has allowed him to be Pope, and I hold out to understand how/why and what good comes of this, as some kind of good certainly must…
So you see I feel a lot of confusion about this pope, which is why I have to actually ask, are you just implying the pope recommends this book, even though he said nothing like this at all??
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